The Ragozin opening is named after one of its first contributors, Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin (1908—1962). He was a Soviet grandmaster and became the World Correspondence Chess Champion in 1959. Matthieu Cornette started to play this opening back in 2007 and has used it ever since. It’s a perfect complement to the main opening against 1.d4, the Nimzo-Indian. Over the last decade this line has become highly fashionable at the top level, with Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Anish Giri and Levon Aronian, to mention only a few of the elite Grandmasters, playing it regularly.
The theory surrounding the Ragozin has developed very fast, but he have never stopped updating his files, and he is still amazed by how good this opening is.
Matthieu Cornette thought it was time for him to share with you all the secrets of his favourite and most-solid line; relatively easy to play, with a good positional background, but somehow almost always forgotten by the chess literature. He apologizes in advance if sometimes he pushes certain lines a bit too far, but he always has a desire to find the truth even if it’s not really possible. In any case, everybody can decide by themselves where to stop.
Matthieu Cornette is a French grandmaster and a successful chessplayer. He became French Champion in 2016. He's also the coach of the French women's national team since 2011.